The Intelligence Enterprise
2.7 The Future of Intelligence
• Producer-consumer relationships. The introduction of collaborative net- works, tools, and soft-copy products has permitted less formal interac- tion and more frequent exchange between consumers and producers.
This allows intelligence producers to better understand consumer needs and decision criteria. This has enabled the production of more focused, timely intelligence.
• Analytic expertise. Enhancements in analytic training and the increased use of computer-based analytic tools and even simulation are providing greater experience—and therefore expertise—to human analysts.
• Open source. Increased use of open-source information via commercial providers (e.g., Lexis Nexis™ subscription clippingservices to tailored topics) and the Internet has provided an effective source for obtaining background information. This enables special sources and methods to focus on validation of critical implications.
• Analysis availability. The use of networks continues to expand for both collaboration (between analysts and consumers as well as between analysts) and distribution. This collaboration was enabled by the intro- duction and expansion of the classified Internet(Intelink)that intercon- nects the IC [24].
• Broadened focus. The community has coordinated open panels to dis- cuss, debate, and collaboratively analyze and openly publish strategic perspectives of future security issues. One example is the “Global Trends 2015” report that resulted from a long-term collaboration with academia, the private sector, and topic area experts [25].
• Rogue nation-states that pose threats to their neighbors, regions, and the United States;
• Information warfare threats to governments and supporting private infrastructures;
• “Traditional concerns” regarding fragile states in volatile regions, failing nations, and nation-states in transition.
This change in the threats has caused national intelligence organizations worldwide to consider the implications for changes in the intelligence process.
At a 2001 conference of national intelligence leaders in Priverno, Italy [27], the shifts in perspective were discussed, and the need for evolutionary or revolution- ary approaches was acknowledged by U.S., European, and Russian speakers.
Summarizing the conference, U.S. intelligence officer Carole Dumaine noted three critical areas of change [28]:
1. Global intelligence cooperation. National intelligence organizations must collaborate and include academic- and business-sector contribu- tors to provide true in-depth global background intelligence.
2. Open-source intelligence. Organizations must “move beyond” the pri- mary focus on secret sources and methods and develop means to embrace and integrate open sources into analysis.
3. New analysis. Analytic communities must create new cultures of col- laboration and “reflection” that will enable them to understand non- state threats.
The two primary dimensions of future threats to national (and global) security include the source (from nation-state actors to no-state actors) and the threat-generating mechanism (continuous results of rational nation-state behav- iors to discontinuities in complex world affairs). These threat changes and the contrast in intelligence are summarized in Table 2.4 [28]. Notice that these changes coincide with the transition from sensor-centric to network- and knowledge-centric approaches to intelligence introduced in Chapter 1.
These changes, similar to those faced by the business community, are imposed by a rapidly changing global environment that involves the complex interaction of many actors. The potential for surprise is great in such complex- ity, and intelligence in the nation-state and in business must be agile, anticipa- tory, and adaptive to this rapidly changing world. Within the U.S. IC, the alternatives between evolution and revolution in approaches to intelligence remain a critical subject of serious debate [29]. In either approach, intelligence must focus on knowledge creation in an enterprise environment that is prepared
to rapidly reinvent itself to adapt to emergent threats. The U.S.National Strat- egy for Homeland Securityrecognizes the need for changes and has recommended significant policy, organizational, and infrastructure changes in U.S. intelligence to respond to terrorist threats. TheStrategyasserts, “The United States will take every necessary action to avoid being surprised by another terrorist attack. We must have an intelligence and warning system that can detect terrorist activity before it manifests itself in an attack so that proper preemptive, preventive, and protective action can be taken” [30]. The following chapters introduce the key KM practices, systems, and technologies that will enable the kind of intelligence organizational, operational, and infrastructure capacity and agility necessary to achieve such objectives.
Table 2.4
The Changing Intelligence Environment Traditional Focus New Focus Threat Dimensions A few large powerful nation-state
threats
Threats caused by continuity of world affairs
Many diverse and empowered nonstate actor threats Threats resulting from discontinuities in world affairs Characteristics of
Intelligence
Centralized Intelligence Distributed Intelligence Focus on collection and secret
sources
Focus on analysis, collaboration with others, open and closed sources
Targets are known, continuous, predictable
Targets are unknown,
discontinuous, and unpredictable Intelligence management on
tactical, operational, measurable objectives
Intelligence management on strategic, anticipatory, adaptive objectives
Hierarchical analysis organization and control
Networked analysis organization and collaboration
Focus on intelligence as a product Focus on intelligence as a service
Endnotes
[1] From definition (2) in Joint Pub 1-02.
[2] Executive Order 12333 provides guidelines for the conduct of intelligence activities. The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence provides copies of the major laws at its Web site: http://intelligence.senate.gov/statutes.htm.
[3] The “DCI Strategic Intent” is a 1998 classified statement of mission and vision for the IC to provide direction for transformation to a collaborative enterprise with effective applica- tion of people, resources, and IT.
[4] The intelligence cycle follows the description of the U.S. CIA; note that the U.S. DoD Joint Pub 2-0 defines six steps in the cycle by including: 1) planning and direction, 2) col- lection, 3) processing and exploitation, 4) analysis and production, 5) dissemination and integration, and 6) evaluation and feedback. See Joint Publication 2-0Doctrine for Intelli- gence Support to Joint Operations, March 2000, in particular Chapter 2—“The Intelligence Cycle,” accessed on-line on October 30, 2002 at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/
new_pubs/jp2_0.pdf.
[5] By fragile, we refer to the potential for loss of value if revealed to the subject of surveil- lance. Even the most sophisticated sources and methods may often be easily defeated by denial or deception if revealed.
[6] Shulsky, A. N.,Silent Warfare—Understanding the World of Intelligence, second edition, Washington D.C.: Brasey’s, pp. 63–69.
[7] Interview with Dr. Joseph Markowitz inOpen Source Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 8–15.
[8] Herman, M.,Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Cambridge England, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1996, Chapter 4: “Collection Sources.”
[9] Computer network operations are comprised of an offensive component (computer net- work attack), a defensive component (computer network defense), and the intelligence function (computer network exploitation).
[10] U.S. Congressional Commission, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of Intelli- gence, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, March 1, 1996.
[11] Making Intelligence Smarter, The Future of U.S. Intelligence, Independent Task Force of Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 1996.
[12] Strategic Assessment: 1996, National Defense University, Washington D.C., 1996, Chapter 6: “Intelligence.”
[13] Fuld, L. M.,The New Competitor Intelligence: The Complete Resource for Finding, Analyz- ing, and Using Information About Your Competitors, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1994.
[14] “Attachment 3: Sources of Intelligence, A.3.1 Human Intelligence (HUMINT),” inUSAF Intelligence Targeting Guide, AF Pamphlet 14-210, February 1, 1998.
[15] Ameringer, C. D., U.S. Foreign Intelligence, Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1990, pp. 13–14.
[16] Holden-Rhodes, J. F.,Sharing the Secrets: Open Source Intelligence and the War on Drugs, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.
[17] Preparing US Intelligence for the Information Age, Director Central Intelligence, STIC 95-003, June 1995.
[18] “Part II Analytic Tools To Cope with the Open Source Explosion,” inPreparing US Intel- ligence for the Information Age, Director Central Intelligence, STIC 93-007, December 1993, and “Part III, Analytic Tools Recommendations for Open Source Information,” in Preparing US Intelligence for the Information Age, Director Central Intelligence, STIC 95-002, April 1995.
[19] A Review of the Intelligence Community, F-1992-02088 CIA, March 19, 1971, sanitized and downgraded from top secret for public release to The Princeton Collection, May 1998, p. 3.
[20] “Committee Findings and Recommendations,” U.S. Congress House Intelligence Com- mittee FY-1996 Markup Report, June 1995.
[21] Hedley, Jr., J. H., “Checklist for the Future of Intelligence,” Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., 1995. See also “IC21—The Intel- ligence Community in the 21st Century, U.S. House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, March 4, 1996.
[22] Hedley, Jr., J. H., “Checklist for the Future of Intelligence,” Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., 1995. See the section entitled,
“Sharpening the Focus,” accessed on-line at http://sfswww.Georgetown.edu/sfs/pro- grams/isd/files/intell.htm.
[23] “Improving Intelligence Analysis,” inPreparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S.
Intelligence, U.S. Congress Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelli- gence Community, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, March 1, 1996.
[24] Martin, F. T.,Top Secret Intranet: How U.S. Intelligence Built Intelink—The World’s Larg- est, Most Secure Network, New York: Prentice Hall, 1998.
[25] Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Non-Government Experts, Washing- ton D.C.: National Intelligence Council, December 2000.
[26] Tenet, G. J., “The CIA and Security Challenges of the New Century,”International Jour- nal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence,Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 2000, p. 138.
[27] Conference on Intelligence in the 21st Century, Priverno, Italy, February 14–16, 2001, accessed on-line at http://future-intel.it/programma.html.
[28] Dumaine, C., “Intelligence in the New Millennium,” CIA Directorate of Intelligence, AFCEA Spring Intelligence Conference, April 18, 2001. Table 2.4 is based on this unclas- sified paper.
[29] For representative viewpoints, see: Medina, C. A., “What to Do When Traditional Mod- els Fail,” and Ward, S. R., “Evolution Beats Revolution,” inStudies in Intelligence, Vol. 46, No. 3, Washington D.C.: CIA, 2002 Unclassified Edition, accessed on-line on October 3, 2002 at http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol46no3/index.html.
[30] The White House,The National Strategy for Homeland Security, U.S. Office of Homeland Security, July 2002, p. viii. See also “Intelligence and Warning, ”pp. 15–19, for specific organizational, infrastructure, and policy changes.